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Stephen Carter

The need for dignity, at land and at sea

Dignity isn’t stuffy. Dignity isn’t old-fashioned. Dignity is crucial to the idea of civilization. Dworkin worried that we have corrupted the word by allowing it to slip into every party platform or international covenant. But the basic concept, in both of its senses, should nevertheless be the centerpiece of political and ethical conversation.

This shouldn’t be a left-right issue. A closer attention to the concept of dignity would change only the terms of our debates, not necessarily their outcomes: Does abortion protect the dignity of the pregnant woman or invade the dignity of the unborn child? Do union seniority rules preserve the dignity of those who have put in long careers or curtail the dignity of those who are starting out?

A politics centered on dignity would mark a vast improvement over the kindergarten babble that passes for serious argument these days. Indeed, we could do a lot worse than choosing our leaders based on who carries himself or herself with the greatest degree of dignity. And we could do a lot worse than making policy based on its effect on the dignity of those whose lives and futures it would affect.

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A politics centered on dignity would mark a vast improvement over the kindergarten babble that passes for serious argument these days. Indeed, we could do a lot worse than choosing our leaders based on who carries himself or herself with the greatest degree of dignity. And we could do a lot worse than making policy based on its effect on the dignity of those whose lives and futures it would affect.

Dignity is not a primary virtue. Dignity is a refection, principally, of the cardinal virtue of Justice applied to the emotional state of human beings.

It’s important to distinguish between circumstances, like the breakdown of a ship’s sewage handling systems, and willful acts, like making a citizen beg for basic Constitutional and human rights. The first is no affront, being an act of God or Nature. It is a burden, it tests resilience, but it is only a matter of dignity if one person chooses to denigrate another, or if a person’s self-worth is tied to superficial things. The second is a direct affront to the dignity–the worthiness–of another. To tell a person that he has no right to speak out against oppression,, that he has no right to defend himself, that he has no safety against capricious prosecution, strikes directly at the core of human worth, those inalienable rights that are necessary to live as a human being ought.